Combined bactericidal activity of silver nanoparticles and hexadecylpyridinium salicylate ionic liquid

Recently, ionic liquids have been used as dispersing agents for silver nanoparticle (AgNP) preparation. In this paper, we have shown a simple method to prepare AgNP in aqueous media using an ionic liquid called hexadecylpyridinium salicylate (HDPSal) as dispersing agent. The dispersions were produced by the chemical reduction of silver ions in aqueous media with different concentrations of HDPSal and tetrabutylammonium borohydride as reducing agent. The UV–Visible electronic spectra showed the characteristic plasmonic resonance band around 420 nm, confirming the formation of AgNPs. The TEM images confirmed the formation of spherical particles with diameters lower than 10 nm. The charge of these particles was determined by Zeta potential and they were around +50 mV, indicating that the HDP cations are surrounding the AgNPs, avoiding their agglomeration. Most of the dispersions remained stable for at least 1 month. Microbiological assays showed that the combination of AgNP with HDPSal results in wider range of antimicrobial effect.     

Crystal and Molecular Structures of Two Triazole Derivatives: 4-Cyclopropyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,3-triazole and Methyl 1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazole-4-carboxylate

Abstract  

The molecule in 4-cyclopropyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,3-triazole (I) is disposed about a mirror plane with the triazole ring lying in the plane and being orthogonal to the cyclopropyl ring. Considerable delocalization of π-electron density within the triazole ring is indicated by the pattern of bond distances in (I). The molecule of methyl 1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazole-4-carboxylate (II) adopts a curved shape with the dihedral angle formed between the triazole and benzene rings being 63.23(8)°. By contrast to (I), localization of π-electron density within the triazole ring in (II) is indicated. Both (I), via N–H···N hydrogen bonding, and (II), via C–H···O and C–H···N interactions, associate in the solid state to form supramolecular chains. In (I), the chain is a zigzag with a flat topology, whereas in (II) the linear chain has a curved topology. Compound (I) crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pnma with a = 5.6470(2) ?, b = 7.3359(4) ?, c = 13.4404(7) ?, and Z = 4. Compound (II) crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P2₁/c with a = 12.1314(5) ?, b = 5.5951(2) ?, c = 16.4339(7) ?, β = 111.269(2)°, and Z = 4.     

A first-order block-decomposition method for solving two-easy-block structured semidefinite programs

In this paper, we consider a first-order block-decomposition method for minimizing the sum of a convex differentiable function with Lipschitz continuous gradient, and two other proper closed convex (possibly, nonsmooth) functions with easily computable resolvents. The method presented contains two important ingredients from a computational point of view, namely: an adaptive choice of stepsize for performing an extragradient step; and the use of a scaling factor to balance the blocks. We then specialize the method to the context of conic semidefinite programming (SDP) problems consisting of two easy blocks of constraints. Without putting them in standard form, we show that four important classes of graph-related conic SDP problems automatically possess the above two-easy-block structure, namely: SDPs for $\theta $ -functions and $\theta _{+}$ -functions of graph stable set problems, and SDP relaxations of binary integer quadratic and frequency assignment problems. Finally, we present computational results on the aforementioned classes of SDPs showing that our method outperforms the three most competitive codes for large-scale conic semidefinite programs, namely: the boundary point (BP) method introduced by Povh et al., a Newton-CG augmented Lagrangian method, called SDPNAL, by Zhao et al., and a variant of the BP method, called the SPDAD method, by Wen et al.     

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of N,N′-di(thiopheneacetyl)diamines Series as Antitubercular Agents

The series of new N,N′-di(thiopheneacetyl)diamines derivatives, 8–17, were synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis(TB), and the activity expressed as the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) in μ g/mL. Compound 13 was the only one determined to be active and exhibited a MIC 50 μg/mL, indicating that the alkyl chain-length of the diamines is critical for biological activity. This class of compound has not been evaluated before, and it could be a good starting point to find new lead compounds in the fight against multi-drug resistant TB.     

Stereoselective Synthesis of Novel Diels–Alder Adducts of p-Substituted Methyl Thiocinnamates and Cyclopentadiene

This article describes the Diels–Alder reaction between methyl thiocinnamates, substituted at the para position by electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups, with cyclopentadiene in the presence of catechol boron bromide (CBB) as a Lewis acid catalyst. The adduct configuration was confirmed by ¹H NMR coupling constants and single-crystal x-ray diffraction. Total endo stereoselectivity was observed in all reactions and was attributed to the effective secondary interaction between the boron atom and the incipient double bond in the norbonene resulting from the planar geometry of the catalyst. ¹³C NMR chemical shifts of the coordinated dienophile carbonyl carbons with CBB compared to those of the non coordinated thiocinammates suggest a strong complexation with the catalyst.     

Polyelectrolyte condensation induced by linear cations

We examine the role of the condensing agent in the formation of polyelectrolyte bundles, via grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations. Following recent experiments we use linear, rigid divalent cations of various lengths to induce condensation. Our results clarify and explain the experimental results for short cations. For longer cations we observe novel condensation behavior owing to the alignment of the cations. We also study the role of the polyelectrolyte surface-charge density, and find a nonmonotonic variation in bundle stability. This nonmonotonicity captures two trends that have been observed in separate experiments.